Sabbatical Interlude

Tomorrow morning I leave for the last stretch of sabbatical time in England. I have been invited to stay at L'Arche Liverpool, where one hundred and fifty people live in community in several households. I will stay at St. Deiniol's Library in Hawarden, not far from Liverpool, and visit another community in Preston. I have had a taste of the study life in this interlude; I spent six hours in the Drew University Library beginning research on community, inclusion and "otherness." It was a wonderful reminder of my student days, with the bonus of being fully in the technology of the internet and what that has done for easy access to countless journals and other research documents.

There was also time for recreation and rest: a 4th of July trip from Fort Lee over the GWB to the Battery and back via bicycle with Ted -- including a stop at the Dinosaur Barbeque on 131st Street (yum!); a lovely dinner catching up with friends; a trip to the Kutztown Folk Festival.

And of course, the garden. The heat of these past weeks made it impossible to work in it except very early or very late in the day. But it continues to be a source of beauty and strength, a place of meditation and joy in creation. We have attracted a family of woodpeckers with the addition of suet to the bird menu. (If only I could have fed them without the pushy, squawking family of bluejays!)
Enjoy the show of the garden; you may need dramamine to get through it!

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Peace+
Cathy